Posted
by
timothy
on Friday July 24, 2009 @12:53AM
from the not-a-panacea-but-good-still dept.

Abel Mebratu writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa has gone live. The fiber-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia. The firm says the cable will help to boost the prospects of the region's industry and commerce. The cable — which is 17,000km long — took two years to lay and cost more than $650m."

There must be something wrong with the under sea cable industry (or at least theor press department) because whenever I read about them I have visions of outages and sabotage - is this cable gonna be a magnet for undersea pirates!?

Probably not. Most undersea cable is armored using metal sheathing when in shallow water and typically pumps are used to shift the sand where the cable lays so it drops into the sand and is covered by it, thereby protecting it. Your biggest concerns are large anchors from boats that ignore the "NO ANCHORING - UNDERSEA CABLE" markings on charts and people who would cut your cable where it gets to land (unless you're smart and buried it all the way to the enclosure).

So what you're saying is that there are markings on charts saying "NO ANCHORING - UNDERSEA CABLE", telling everyone where the cables are as well as how to harm them, and then wondering *how* the pirates would harm the undersea cables?...

I worked in and around West Africa for a number of years. We waited for SAT-3 to be installed, then upgraded, and then the East Africa cables to be installed as backup. While they are somewhat vulnerable to anchors and such, keep in mind that it's a big ocean out there and the cable is pretty small. Typically the cables like this one and SAT-3 are laid far enough offshore to keep them in really deep water. Having said that, the links to the beach are probably the most at risk. The cable companies trenc

According to TFA: "The cable was due to be launched in June but was delayed by pirate activity off the coast of Somalia."
I assume that by that they mean that the ships that lay the cable couldn't get to their destination for fear of being boarded. Can this become a new tactic for these pirates? Somehow damage the cable and then wait around for a ship to come and replace the cable segment?

According to TFA: "The cable was due to be launched in June but was delayed by pirate activity off the coast of Somalia."
I assume that by that they mean that the ships that lay the cable couldn't get to their destination for fear of being boarded. Can this become a new tactic for these pirates? Somehow damage the cable and then wait around for a ship to come and replace the cable segment?

I imagine that cable is probably pretty deep... and underground when it gets into shallows/onto land. But I'm no expert... I've never laid my cable under the sea.

Wired magazine wrote a fascinating piece called Hacker Tourist in one of their early issues that described much of this in detail. Including historical cable & society references from well over 100 years ago.

Nitpick: that article was written by Neal Stephenson (yes, the same), and the title is 'Mother Earth motherboard'. The term hacker tourist is used in the article but is ultimately not its focus. It's brilliant, btw.

it sure can open some prosperity to the region but usually ends used mostly as spam pots and servers for evil things. I was surprised how many even internet caffees was loaded with trojans and viruses in africa. Even in 3-4* hotels. Spreading internet is fine, but just lay cable, resell and forget is not good for internet as a whole.

Good point. Let's roll it all up and leave the internet in the hands of responsible people like Americans and Europeans. They do such a fantastic job with oil and those Spanish fisherman off our coastline are such a joy to see raping our natural resources in the morning light.
Your idea has merit. In order to control the quality and validity of information and data that the internet connects the entire world with, why don't we simply restrict access to all those individuals whom we deem to be threat, leavi

In countries like Malawi, Internet access is limited by price to middle and upper middle class citizens. When ISPs hook up to this fibre, they'll be able to drop their prices and extend services down the economic spectrum.

I hope folks in East Africa will now be able to "VOIP" seriously. Their pay-as-you-go cellphone plans are insane at an average of US$0.15 per minute with extra fees for talking to a colleague on another network.

And yes, I know VOIP is not the savior or the world and its advantages will be to those who are mostly static, but it's a good start.

It must be, especially because of the distance it carries data. The rate of transfer is impacted by that 17,000 km so much that this can hardly be the cable you would find in your common datacentre. Add to that 2 years of labour costs and all the resources needed to lay the cable.

A quote from wikipedia: "Because the effect of dispersion increases with the length of the fiber, a fiber transmission system is often characterized by its bandwidth-distance product, often expressed in units of MHzÃ--km. This

There exists such a thing as dispersion shifted fiber and dispersion compensating units. Generally the limiting factor on your distance is your optical signal to noise ratio which will decrease with each additional amplifier you add to the system until you have to put a transponder in to do a retime reshape and retransmit for each fiber.

I know math is hard and all, and that it doesn't show the cable length on that link, but that's probably a 6 foot cable (I can't remember the last time I saw one shorter than six feet that I didn't cut myself), making it cheaper per foot than the undersea. Not by much though.

Of course, compare to a 100 ft cable for under $10 listed under similar products.

Monster seems to do well off the PT Barnum theory of capitalism--there's a sucker born every minute.

Sir SoreHands,First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction, over a public forum. Me are top official of the South Eastern Valley Regional Bank of Nigeria. Me who are interested in the finance of importation of great goods of quality into our country with funds currently trapped in the North Western Hilly Regional Bank of Nigeria. We request your help to access states such trapped funds.

Doing the reign of my dearly departed step-father, various ministries have funneled money from th

Quick geography lesson: in that "country" called Africa (where all the lions, tigers and bears live), there is this place called Nigeria, which happens to be on the left side of the map - that means West Africa, not East.

There is no need to put quotes around country when referring to Europe (unless you do the same with the U.S.) as there is indeed a country called Europe now (European Union). Most of those who live in this new country don't realize that their former country has become a mere state in the larger country, but it has indeed happened and is probably irreversible.

Way to sum up an entire continent of a billion people.Whle we're indulging in stereotypes, fuck you... you ignorant American tool.

I'm sure you're ready to point instantly, on a blank map, to any state in the USA I care to pick. Quick, where's Colorado?!?

Yeah, right. Knowing where any particular African nation is doesn't benefit anyone but schoolkids facing a geography test and businessmen working a deal there. Imagining that we're going to waste any energy keeping an African map memorized, when the particul

I don't care where on the African continent Nigeria is, because it's trivial knowledge that does me no good.

That's pretty much the attitude I'm talking about right there. Nigeria has a population of 150 million people (in the top 10) and because the only thing you learned in geography class was where Colorado and Vermont are on the map, it doesn't matter to you.

Still, you missed the point of my post. The "ignorant American" jibe wasn't just for the lack of geography knowledge, but for the idea that Africa is filled with lions, tigers, bears and 419 scammers.

Because we ALL know that internet traffic is geographically routed and exclusive, right?

I mean, packets from West Africa *never* go over lines from East Africa, and the installation of PHAT bandwidth to E. Africa certainly wouldn't reduce congestion on the rest of the system, yes?

Look, I understand that my point is specious - but it's entirely possible these points were made in humor (and thus not really worth the hypersensitive response), or even if not, they may have a reasonable basis in fact (and thus n

As a resident of Kampala, Uganda I can say that this is a huge development here. East Africa is one of the last densely populated places on the planet that is entirely dependent on satellite for all data and voice communications. I currently pay about $50 a month for a connection that can burst up to 160kbps, averages at about 40kbps, and doesn't work about 30% of the time.

I currently pay about $50 a month for a connection that can burst up to 160kbps, averages at about 40kbps, and doesn't work about 30% of the time.

As another resident of Kampala, Uganda, I want to know where the you get your Internet from because that's the kind of connection I PRAY FOR EVERY NIGHT BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP.

Please excuse my rampant cynicism, but...

Where I work, we pay $1062/mo for a 256k/128k link with Datanet that's shared out to four sites (they claim we're on two bandwidth profilers and thus are getting 512/256 split between two links -- but I don't see that) which is up only 30% of the time on average -- though in all fairness the last two months have been OK.

And when I say OK, I'm only referring to the local link between us and our other sites around Kampala being stable, and not the Internet which is what we're actually paying all the money for.

It's not like we have anywhere to go, either. MTN is more expensive, Infocom is more expensive, Broadband Company doesn't yet peer at the IXP as far as I'm aware, UTL is more expensive, Africa Online is equal or more expensive, etc.

All of them do things like using private IP addresses in their public space, leave their VSAT customers modems exposed to the world with default admin/admin passwords, randomly block ports with no warning (like 25, for example), walk into the IXP and start ripping cables out in the middle of work-days with no notice, have zero customer service, charge you $1500 for a radio, try to force you to pre-pay three months before providing you service, don't give a shit when they don't provide service and you demand a refund, etc. (We've told Datanet we're post-paying and that's that, but this is not a normal procedure around here and they bitch about the fact that we do it all the time.) It took Infocom seven attempts to even get us a quote with the right items on it.

At my home I pay 245,000UGX ($120) for a 64k connection with MTN that is limited to 2GB of transfer -- when that runs out I have to "top-up" again. They don't determine my bandwidth usage at the cache, either. They determine it based on what comes in and out of my home radio. How's that fair? I'm PAYING for their VSAT link, not peered communications with other sites around Kampala (working from home, for example?) But I don't have a choice, because for what I need there's nowhere else to go short of paying double what I am now.

Furthermore, I was at the Seacom launch party yesterday at the Serena. Seacom came up and stated that they're selling bandwidth to the resellers at $50 - $150/meg depending on what you're buying (STM-1, STM-64, etc).

Yeah? Great! But then why did Infocom call me up a few days ago and tell me the "early-bird special" was $700/meg for a limited time only?

Meanwhile, when Seacom had the Ugandan ICT minister "cut the ribbon" yesterday, they asked him to "download anything he wished in order to get the fiber experience." After staring at the screen like a deer-in-headlights for a few seconds, he instructed his aide to download something for him.

This is the same guy that randomly announced that Uganda will ban ALL second-hand computers effective 2 months from today. That includes the P4's w/ 512mb ram, KB, monitor, and mouse sold for $70. These will be no more because Mr. I-don't-know-how-to-use-a-computer-ICT-minister wants to decimate half the computer industry here along with all tech related charities and re-raise the barrier to entry for this wonderful "landscape changing, poverty eliminating fiber connection." Why? He claims e-dumping, but that's obviously a bullshit cover for something else.

So while Tanzania and other countries were busy rolling out local fiber to their rural areas -- preparing for this event, we've got an ICT minister who barely knows how to use a computer and thus have nothing.

Oh, and I loved how Infocom (who provided the IT services for the event) dumped an

Hmm... With that many problems, I would consider moving. I don't know if you love the place you live for other reasons... But to me, at some level, I'd move for a good Internet connection. (As for other things like clean water, and a acceptable apartment too.)

I learned a few years ago when I was working in Uganda that if you need reliable 'broadband' communications, you do not go through a Ugandan business. Socially, it's a dick thing to do but you're describing is what happens. You need to own your own modem and dish and your provider needs to be based outside of Uganda so when things go wrong, you can call someone who A.) knows what he's doing and B.) is accountable. That initial cost is going to hurt, but you'll be pulling your hair out a lot less. Of cou

... then the OP is describing a working environment that borders on the intolerable. Words like rapacious, incompetent, etc. come to mind. That said, getting into competition with these folk is not as easy as one might think. I have to believe that the fat profit margins being described are being siphoned off to various bank accounts and that a competent ISP with growing market share might find itself suddenly shut down unless similar protection payments are made. If that sounds cynical, I apologize, but g

I for one, welcome faster Internet. Here in South Africa we're lagging so far behind the rest of the planet, its quite rediculous. I hear from my friends overseas that they're being upgraded to 50mb/s lines - usually for free as a part of their service provider upgrading their infrastructure - we're still struggling on under 1mb/s lines - and at a price that is so high (when you look at the cost of the service and the availability of income - the Internet isn't something that is cheap). Heck, even if you look at the price overseas and factor in the exchange rate, its still cheaper to access the Internet oversea's than it is here (and you get far more for your money's worth).
*sigh*. If only our Government wasn't so corrupt and inefficient, maybe we wouldn't be so far behind the rest of the world.

As you can see I now have internet access which makes me sending this important message to you much faster than letters.

I am a made-up chief of a tribe who due to circumstances has $26,000,000 which I would like to offer you 10% if you can help me move the money out of my country. With the new internet connection, you will find you will be paid much faster than ever, and I can spam more of the world faster than ever before.

East Africa's technological growth, particularly in Kenya and Rwanda, has been hampered by ridiculously expensive bandwidth. My university had (still has, I believe) a 2Mb/s internet connection that was shared by a faculty and student community of about 5000. It was practically unusable. Call centers in Nairobi simply couldn't stay afloat even after being given tax incentives and having low wage bills(typical monthly salary for a call center worker is $400/month).
Bandwidth prices have reduced by a factor of 4 and while its not expected that they will reach levels in Europe and America any time soon as ISPs and investors recoup their investment, the immediate benefits, lower latencies and higher reliability as compared to satellite, are already being felt. The are lots of bright people with great ideas that have been held back by the high cost of internet. With the arrival of the Seacom cable and TEAMS later on, I have no doubt that East Africa will become a major player in BPO, software development and research in the years to come.

Probably. Especially if they have message size restrictions on the inbound/outbound server.

A 2Mbps link can transmit about 650MB/hr (same for inbound). It takes an awful lot of 10k e-mail messages to fill up 650MB (65,000 per hour in each direction) and there are 24 hours in a day. Even with a 90-95% spam ratio, it's probably doing fine. It's the emails with large attachments that will kill your bandwidth.

It used to be that if you looked at a map of undersea cables, West Africa was linked up with the lights going out at South Africa. The cables on the other side stopped in the Mideast. The only dark stretch was East Africa.

I live in San Jose, California. I can see Google, and other campuses from my house. I can not get High speed internet. I use a dial-up line. I am just a little bit up the hill, and the new development less than 200m down the hill all have high speed DSL, they also have comcast cable. All that does me little good, as nobody will connect me.

Maybe the telecom companies will have extra resources to connect me, now that they are finished with Africa.

I have to suspect like some other people here that it will help business in South Africa first and the universities and some urban affluent second in the various countries. A lot of "urban" people in Soweto would still love to live in a U.S. trailer park so I'm not sure broadband to their home is a first priority. But we shouldn't discount the value of a neighborhood cyber cafe.

All the East coast of Africa has up to now been severeley lacking in possibilities of connectivity, and has had to make do with satellite links which are high latency and expensive (a DEDICATED satlink of 1Mb up and 1Mb down is in the ballpark range of around $10,000 per month, yes ten-THOUSAND per MONTH).The West coast has had the SAT-3 cable for a while (2001), with a total capacity of 120Gbit/s (according to Wikipedia). Most of that lands and gets used up in SouthAfrica and in Nigeria. South Africa is in

Of course you are right. The point I was trying to imply is that the fact that internet coming to the villages might be very good news, it is interesting to me how this emphasizes the differences between cities and the coutryside. In the article, this last paragraph cought my eye:
"But our correspondent says it is not clear whether the internet revolution will reach the villages, many of which still struggle to access reliable electricity."
If there are going to be investments in infrastructure, should th

The fact that this link is live, will have no bearing on internet in the countryside... The problem is the local infrastructures in those remote "village" locations.

Btw, I spent 16 years in South Africa, I grew up there, there are plenty of remote areas that have no real infrastructure (that includes sewage, running water, power, telephone etc etc), and considering South Africa is probably the most advanced of the countries on the Southern African continent, who knows how much worse it is in the other coun

Thinking of it, this is actually a smart move. Powering up your industrialized areas with Internet only makes those areas more productive, thereby generating more tax money which in turn can be used to help those villages.

Putting sewage, water and electricity into villages doesn't guarantee a ROI - it's just a sink-hole for money. Once you install those basic necessities they will only attract maintenance costs and shift focus away from survival and onto prospering. The people will focus more on getting the

In 2000 37.2% of Africa's inhabitants were urban and it is expected to rise to 45.3% in 2015. From the wikipedia articale [wikipedia.org] on African Urbanisation.

Thats still well down on much of the rest of the world and still means 2 in 3 people are presently making a living "from the primary occupations of farming, hunting & gathering, cattle nomadism, and fishing." So GP is probably right enough in his comment about the villages . . .

Actually, the Wikipedia article seems to be drawing its definition of urban dwellers as anyone who isn't one of those things.. still isn't the best definition though, you could have plenty of fishermen living in a city if it was on the coast.

He was replying to a post that suggested that Africans don't need high speed internet, because they don't have electricity yet in their "villages". He never said that majority of Africans live in cities, just that not ALL Africans live in villages.

Afaict undersea cables aren't pure fiber. There is a fiber core which carries the actual data but there are also layers of conductors (not sure if they use copper or some other metal) to carry high voltage power to the repeaters and in shallower waters a layer of metal armoring to reduce the risk of damage.

Whether or not he is an idiot is irrelevant to his comment. The fact of the matter is he is correct. There is a huge problem in South Africa where people are literally cutting down high voltage and low voltage (phone) cables and selling them for scrap (and yes, many people die cutting those lines). On top of that, they do like to steal power, especially in townships where you can see ad hoc cabling running from nominal voltage transmission lines (220v60Hz) to the shacks they live in.